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hcs_$reboot writes "After the disastrous Apple Maps replacement over Google Maps in September, Google has a Maps app on iOS approved and released by Apple today. The app includes turn-by-turn directions, vector-based graphics and live traffic data. It's available from the Apple Store for iPhone and iPod touch (and iPad — iPhone format)."
Adds reader snowtigger: "It's a sharper looking, vector-based map that loads quickly and provides smooth tilting and rotating of 2D and 3D views. Google also released the Google Maps SDK for iOS, and a simple URL scheme to help developers use Google Maps when building their beautiful and innovative apps. The new Google Maps app is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch (4th gen) iOS 5.1 and higher, in more than 40 countries and 29 languages."
SlashCloud points out that Apple's own maps will be forced to improve as a consequence: "Directions will become more accurate, major towns and landmarks will appear in their proper places. But now that a free, standalone Google Maps app is available for download from Apple’s App Store, will iOS users even give those improving Apple Maps a chance?"

If Google would have bothered to keep the iOS version even close to what they offered in Android

Google never wrote the old Maps app for iOS. Google supplied map data and Apple wrote the app; that was the arrangement from the beginning. Ditto for the Youtube app: Google never even saw the source code for it, much less wrote any of it.

If Google would have bothered to keep the iOS version even close to what they offered in Android

Google never wrote the old Maps app for iOS. Google supplied map data and Apple wrote the app; that was the arrangement from the beginning. Ditto for the Youtube app: Google never even saw the source code for it, much less wrote any of it.

You're both right, according to the best public information available... Apple wrote the app, but was only licensed to use the raster data and forbidden from doing turn-by-turn directions or other modern features by the license. Google refused to renew the license without adding all kinds of tracking into iOS, which Apple refused to allow. Since the license was set to expire before the next major version of iOS would have come out, Apple was forced to switch maps in this version.

And it mostly succeeded. It's hard to argue that the new map imagery isn't way, way better than what Google previously licensed Apple. Map imagery is crisper, faster, caches better, and is generally more readable. And routing directions are actually pretty good, taking into account traffic, etc. It's really just the geo-location that Apple dropped the ball on, and the public transit that Apple needlessly complicated.

Geo-location is quickly being fixed, but is the biggest glaring problem and really the crux of the matter. Public transit has a million other alternatives in most metropolitan areas and does link directly from Maps, but is less convenient... hopefully Apple will revamp this in iOS 7 and allow integrated plugins for Maps.

In the meantime, it's nice to see Google bringing an alternative to the platform, for anyone willing to trade their privacy for better geolocation.

Google refused to renew the license without adding all kinds of tracking into iOS, which Apple refused to allow

"Adding all kinds of tracking" sounds ominous, but in reality Google asked for Latitude to be included. This is an opt-in service that enables people to publish their location to each other, either manually or automatically. So it's not like Google wanted some spyware to be installed into iOS that would keep tabs on every single user - only those who specifically ask for it get it.

And it mostly succeeded. It's hard to argue that the new map imagery isn't way, way better than what Google previously licensed Apple. Map imagery is crisper, faster, caches better, and is generally more readable.

Except for the areas where Apple map imagery is some ancient crappy black-and-white satellite photos. Or where the entire area is covered by clouds (including some major cities). And so on.

So, yes, it's very easy to argue that the new map imagery is not in any noticeable way better than what Google offered, and in many areas, it's actually worse.

The Apple Maps app honestly never let me down. I know I've read reports of it causing people to go odd places... but cannot say it happened to me.

Me either. The directions, including turn-by-turn, worked fine.

The reason I'm getting the Google version is for public transportation directions, which the Apple app doesn't do. (Navigating strange public transportation systems when you've just landed in a strange city and don't have a car is pretty high on the list for smartphone use cases in my opinion.)

until this is the most-downloaded app in the store? One day? A few hours?

Try "the moment it showed up [apple.com]." It hasn't even been available for 8 hours yet and it already has tens of thousands of downloads. People haven't even gotten out of bed yet, and it's the most downloaded app of the day.

Yeah. Apparently Apple has finally figured out that killing your customers isn't good business./snark This is the first time Apple has had to swallow its pride and admit that something they made failed so disasterously that even the Reality Distortion Field created by thousands of spin doctors and lawyers collapsed. They'll probably fix that problem though when they switch to 16nm fabrication though for their chip plants. Battery life and minaturization of lawyers has always been a major shortcoming of the

Hmm, the Apple 3, the Lisa (debatable), the Newton, initial iCloud release, near irrelevance before Jobs came back... I'm sure there are others. I expect them to be more frequent now that Steve Jobs is not around to flip out and shred poor designs and implementations. It is definitely not the first major Apple flameout.

I have an iphone and I like my iphone but I expect my next phone to be an android both because rooted linux should improve and because Apple will go downhill without Jobs (great designe

Seriously, what were they thinking? Everyone had a solid, universal reason to not buy an iPhone 5 and Google, maker of Android, ruined it. Is a couple thousand dollars in app money really worth failing to crush Apple even worse? Well, regardless, Apple has less than a year left on their lease their maps database and interface. I don't know if a 3rd party app like this counts or not but regardless, this is beyond stupid. I bet their contract didn't say they had to design an entirely new app for them. I certainly would have left them hanging. That or made a total troll map app where the third direction is always "Lol @ Apple, we're only getting you this far. Try Apple maps for the rest of the directions. Try not to drive off a cliff into the ocean."

From what I've read before, the previous Apple Maps app was also made by Apple, just using the Google API. The new app is all Google. I don't think Google really cares about iPhones and iPads. iPhone and iPad users still use Google services and see Google ads.

Probably they were thinking carefully with a room full of smart people considering more than short term one-upmanship on their mobile platform. Google is not Android, it's much bigger than that. They have to fiercely defend their reputation for playing nice on many/all platforms, because many of us started using their service for that very reason. Google is supposed to be better than petty BS, they are supposed to be that more-agnostic omnipresent service that is available everywhere. IMHO anyway.

Until Apple switched over to Apple Maps, those were the terms that iOS developers had to live with using the mapping SDK. Apple offers unlimited geocoding queries, Google has a limit of 2500 per day across all instances of your application!

Google also has higher limits if you pay them, but even those limits are way too low for a popular application.

Also under the Google Map regime, developers COULD NOT provide turn my turn directions on top of Google Maps. Now that Apple is providing maps there is no restriction at all to what overlays a developer chooses to put on a map.

In the end are not the users of a system served better by an endless variety of applications free to use maps in any way they like? It's not about any ONE application, it's about thousands of them.

In the interests of public safety, Apple really had to approve this app.

GPS Navigation tools frequently have outdated maps which can lead us astray. And, there is always a horror story of someone getting lost in the desert beause they followed their GPS. Google, if I recall correctly, was sued by a woman when their maps told her to take a pedestrian route that didn't have sidewalks and she was hit by a car.

At the very least, Apple can now deflect such litigeous action to Google. And, by approving it, it

"Original iPad"? This app still doesn't support *ANY* iPad directly. It's an iPhone-native app, that can be 2x scaled to show on the iPad also. Looks horrible at full size.

Okay, I get it - Google wanted to get *something* out there as quickly as possible. But it cannot be THAT hard to set up a native iPad resolution - it's just a bigger screen. Come on already, Google. Finish the job quickly, please.

I'm really happy this is out, as it proves Apple is willing to allow Google to create a new iOS mapping app t

BARON
iOS, iOS... I place you in charge
of Maps. It's yours to squeeze, as I
promised. I want you to squeeze and
squeeze and squeeze.
(massaging in rhythm)
Give me spice! Drive them into utter
submission. You must not show the
slightest pity or mercy... as only you
can... Never stop!
(releasing him)
Go.... Show no mercy!

iOS
Yes, my lord Baron.

iOS leaves just as Google steps out of the shower.The Baron turns to him lovingly.--
BARON
(to Google)
And when we've crushed these people enough
I'll send in you Google... they'll cheer you
as a rescuer... lovely Google... really a
lovely boy.
(suddenly he smiles and screams)
Where's my doctor?

While I'm extremely glad to have Google Transit directions back, I'm honestly shocked at the lack of integration with iOS contacts. Typing in your friend's name for directions to their place is a pretty basic use case.

Apple maps is missing transit directions, streetview, most information, and has inaccurate destinations, but turn-by-turn actually does work pretty well. I was particularly happy with how it works when it has no internet connection.

I took a trip to the US not long ago, and my data plan stops working when I cross the border. However, it turns out that Apple Maps will continue providing turn-by-turn directions without issue so long as it had an Internet connection when you started; it will cache the entire route, and enough site-routes to accommodate a bit of rerouting.

When using Apple Maps turn-by-turn in a foreign country, you can get your phone on the hotel wifi, enter your destination, give it a few seconds to download all the data it requires, and then leave the hotel (and wifi coverage) without issue.

I don't yet know if Google Maps has similar behaviour. I hope it does, because Apple Maps seems useless for anything but driving directions, and I don't have a car. Whatever possessed them to remove public transit directions is beyond me. They took out all the features I used, and put in features I either don't use or use extremely infrequently.

IMHO, the Apple maps app is far better than the media and the naysayers would have you believe.

Every time I've used turn-by-turn, including in suburban areas with idiotic short streets and those are-they-roads-or-parking-lots near shopping centers, it's been spot-on.

"What about transit info?" Transit info in the old Google maps app blew, at least as far as subway info in NYC went. Missing/mismarked entrances, etc. "iTransNYC" worked far, far better and there are similar apps for major city rail systems. Outside of that, how many people REALLY own iPhones and ride the bus? In most metro areas outside of those served by urban rail, the bus service blows. Everybody drives.

I had plenty of mismarked locations with Google maps, not just 4 years ago, but in the last year. It was far from perfect, as have most standalone GPS devices I've used in rental cars.

To me, this seems like resistance to change or just anti-Apple ranting. I downloaded the Google app to check it out, but IMHO I still like the Apple app better, especially visually.

The more interesting aspect of this story to me, is that Google also is offering an SDK for iOS developers. If Google really wants to keep collecting a lot of data, it seems like they would want to make it really attractive to use Google maps in an application over the built in Apple mapping framework.

Looking over the licensing terms [google.com] though, it would seem the Google Maps SDK is kind of developer hostile. Not only do they have limited access to API keys at the moment, but look at the restrictions Google imposes on you as an app developer. Only 2500 requests per day for geocoding or directions - an absurdly low figure for any mapping application to be distributed to millions of people. Even the "business" plan (which I believe you have to pay Google for) as what I consider to be an overly low API request limit of 100k requests a day.

As an iOS developer there is NO way I would replace the use of the iOS mapping framework (where geocoding requests are unlimited) with Google's SDK.

Yes, I know. These terms have prevented me from building several mapping applications that I now have under construction for iOS.

As it stands it is impossible to port these applications to Android under those restrictions. Just because Google is loathe to give up collecting as much data by having you use maps in the context of an application, Android users will be denied all kinds of interesting map based applications that might have been - and Google is preventing themselves from becoming a dominant force of mapping in applications on iOS, which they very well could be without those restrictions.

nokia already has a free mapping/nav app on iOS. there is also navigon which uses navteq maps and has full offline capability

And whose interface is really, really awful. Reinforcing the point that Apple's design plus NavTeq's data could be a world-leading solution. At this point Nokia's actual handset business is probably worth less than the NavTeq acquisition... Apple could divest it to Microsoft or kill it without much problem. They've probably lost more market cap over maps than Nokia is worth in its entirety.

This whole exercise demonstrated maps are a critical service and relying on a direct competitor for a critical service is a problem. As a result of Apple's actions, they have their own map service they are improving and Google's map service with features previously withheld. Win win for Apple, there is no going back.

I would more say this was a win-win for Google. They made demands of Apple, Apple said 'no, we can do this without you', Apple took a huge PR hit for pushing out a sub-par application that did not have Google's data anymore... and now Google has swept in to save the day with their own branded application instead...

Google ends up looking good, Apple takes pretty much all the PR damage.. and Google gets to remind Apple who is more powerful.

This, exactly. When people say that they miss the old Maps app, I always wonder if they were using the same app as I was, because the old one was nigh unusable for me. No turn-by-turn, have to have the app open for it to be of any use, poor Siri integration, slow-rendering raster tiles... It just sucked.

So Apple dumps it for a variety of reasons and releases a new app based on their own data. The interface is far superior to the old app, it has vector tiles, turn-by-turn, and Siri integration. The problem? For lots of people, the map data itself isn't as good. Being kicked out forces Google to release their own, competitive app with the previously missing features. Since it will presumably have better map data, or at least POI data, this will force Apple to improve their own product.

This is how the free market is supposed to work. It's unfortunate Apple apparently rushed its inclusion of Maps in iOS 6, but every iOS user today is better off than they were with iOS 5.

There is one thing about this story that is odd, though, and that is that it took Google so long to make an app. The writing was on the wall for quite some time before iOS 6 was announced (let alone released), and yet they still seemed caught flat-footed. Also, I enjoy that everyone who claimed Apple would never allow this app into the store were all proven wrong.

It wasn't Google keeping you under-featured, it was Apple. Google wanted to add navigation etc. but Apple was insisting that they provide it for free. Now Google has provided it and added the extra branding it wanted.

Even better, with Apple pushing his own map app, Google will not be able to keep as under-featured as before.

That's what I said [slashdot.org]. But then I was told that Apple was the one who wrote the Google Maps app for iPhone. They merely licensed the rights to use Google's data in their app. Apparently Apple was not willing to pay the extra to license turn by turn navigation. So it was in fact Apple which chose to keep the original app under-featured, not Google.

Yes and no. The general public will largely see this the way you describe, but you are missing one key component. The demands Apple did not want to "give in to" were customer data and privacy demands specified in the Apple TOS. To get Google Maps in the App store, Google had to comply with those standards. So Google did not get everything they wanted. Apple has the features Android had in Google Maps without having to concede on the privacy standards they have set. So, in actuality, Apple did "win," just not in public opinion.

The demands Apple did not want to "give in to" were customer data and privacy demands specified in the Apple TOS.

Wrong. The demands Apple refused were calling the app "Google Maps" and making the Google logo actually visible on the maps view. Technically it was there in iOS 5, it was just transparent to the point of being as impossible to see as they could get away with.

Apple already tracks their iOS users everywhere they go ("to serve appropriate local ads," you see); it's not like they care about privacy in the slightest.

Latitude is a service that tracks your location and stores it on Google servers (so that you can share it with your friends), but it's an opt-in service - it does not track you and send data anywhere unless you explicitly enable it. If Apple privacy policy restricts that kind of thing, then I have to say that it is a very strange policy, indeed (and one wonders how the various apps that record your hiking tracks and publish them online are then consistent with it).

It doesn't. Apple has a competing iOS-only version [apple.com], so they won't allow Google to compete with them on their own device. Despite the fact that Apple's app is entirely useless for anyone who has friends that haven't drunken the Apple-flavored kool-aid.

I would more say this was a win-win for Google. They made demands of Apple, Apple said 'no, we can do this without you', Apple took a huge PR hit for pushing out a sub-par application that did not have Google's data anymore... and now Google has swept in to save the day with their own branded application instead...

Also, Google managed to inflict the maximum damage on the iphone5 launch and during that time launched their own sell-out phone. Seems to have all worked out very well for Google, and very poorly for Apple.

What I'd really like to know is which company held-up the release of the new Google Maps -- was it Google seeking to maximise damages, or Apple in an attempt to crash-or-crash-through? I'm sure Google could have had the app released much sooner if both parties were willing...

Absolutely a win for consumers. We now have two vector-based maps apps with turn by turn directions and really clean interfaces, where before we had none. Google's data seems a little better, Apple's maps a little prettier. I suspect that both will improve over time: competition is good.

If you were Apple, you wouldn't have survived the 90's.While the Apple maps data is not the best in some places, I can say that they're doing a much better job improving than everyone else. It took Google a few years to have any roads listed in most European countries. Apple started with complete maps. I've compared the coverage of Apple, Google, Nokia, Bing and OSM on quite a few occasions and OSM is the only one better than the rest. Google, Apple, Nokia and Bing are not showing one third of the motorways in Romania. I'm not talking about a forgotten secondary road somewhere up in the mountains, I'm talking about (albeit a few) hundreds of kilometers of motorways.The application isn't bad at all. It's still superior to Google's, at least for now. The data might be flawed in some places, but you should give them a few months to get it right. I'm quite sure that when Google Maps first appeared, their data wasn't optimal either. Their maps are now much better due to community effort in apps like mapmaker.In case you're an idiot and couldn't figure this out by yourself, I'm going to spell it out: it makes perfect business sense to build your own maps application if your biggest competitors (Google, Microsoft, Nokia) all have their own solutions. What do you think the licensing costs would be if Apple attempted to license a maps solution from Nokia's Navteq or from Microsoft's Bing?

The data might be flawed in some places, but you should give them a few months to get it right. I'm quite sure that when Google Maps first appeared, their data wasn't optimal either. Their maps are now much better due to community effort in apps like mapmaker.

Actually I'd forgotten about this, but - for Google Maps' first couple years, when someone would look up my home address it would show them a location about ten miles from here - we used to have a good laugh about that.

If I were Apple, I would push out a patch today that scraps Apple Maps and replaces it with Google. Apple is a company that makes its money selling hardware with a proprietary OS, not homegrowing competitive and complex applications. They stretched themselves outside their realm of competency, and this is a good time to fix it.

Honestly, I don't get why they didn't support or help Google from the start. I would have thought that if they wanted to develop, they could have more easily come up with a frontend to several MS Office replacements and avoid all the BS with Office 365.

Because allegedly Google wanted Apple to wallpaper the new iOS mapping app with the Google logo and integrate one of Google's social networking systems as a preconditions for allowing Apple to pay for the privilege of integrating new Google Maps features with iOS. How much of that is true I don't know but if even only half of it is true I would have said no too. Mind you, I would definitely have tried to find a better replacement maps provider than TomTom, like, say... Garmin or even Microsoft/Nokia. The N

That's not a reasonable position for Apple to take; not at all. They could have simply left the old gmaps app since their license had not *yet* expired, and at least avoided this debacle. Furthermore, you present "plastering" google's logo all over the app as if its certain this was something truly terrible - when that's not sure at all; it's not unreasonable to claim credit for an app you made so a logo might be reasonable.

All in all - if both parties had wanted this to work out they would have made it work. It's certain apple wasn't being reasonable, and quite believable Google wasn't either (but we really only have Apple's word for that). In any case - it's Apple's device; they're Apple customers, and that makes it Apple's responsibility to come up with a solution that doesn't suck - whether that solution involves using an old-fashioned app for another year, or a different provider, or kowtowing to Google isn't really important.

Regardless of who else is involved, Apple chose to harm their customers, probably intentionally, because that fit their strategic aims better. Given apple's dealings with samsung (and others), Apple doesn't come across as a very open-minded company: does it really surprise anyone they played hardball even if doing so cost them something?

Put it this way: if you blame some third party for a seller's failure to provide quality goods, that's not exactly a great incentive for said seller to be fair with you the next time - why bother? Defending Apple for their abuse of their customers reminds me a little too much of the stockholm syndrome for comfort.

Apple wanted Google to add turn by turn navigation to the Maps app. Google wanted to the terms of the contract between them renegotiated since the original didn't include turn by turn navigation, even though Google had added it to their own Maps app in Android. Apple wanted new functionality added under the terms of the old contract, and Google wasn't willing.

Honestly, I don't get why they didn't support or help Google from the start.

They did. Apple was more then happy to work with Google the search, maps and video company. To the extent that they even had a Google exec on the Apple board of directors. (Eric Schmidt). Google was represented on the original iPhone by search, youTube and maps app. A positoin no other company had. And one could have expected that relationshop to grow through later revisions of iOS.

What stopped it was Google developing copy-cat phone OS of their own. It's a bad idea to de dependant on a competitor in the v

If I were Apple, I would push out a patch today that scraps Apple Maps and replaces it with Google.

Why should they do that? My experienced has been that Apple Maps app works better than the Google one. I'm lucky that all my street data is accurate for my region, and the complaints (which seem over sensationalized) concerns data accuracy and not the application itself.

"The whole reason they dropped Google Maps was that their contract with Google was up, and Apple wouldn't renew it on terms acceptable by Google. It wasn't about "supporting" or "helping" Google, it was entirely about what Apple was asking in return for allowing Google Maps in their OS"

P.S.: Have you noticed how Google managed to come up with a decent Maps app in only 6 months? They completely neglected the iOS distributed app for years and only improved on Android until Apple kicked their arse back to work.

The iPhone "Maps" app has always been an Apple developed product which is part of the iOS core, Google only provided the map data via a licensing agreement. The big sticking point on renewing the licensing agreement was not (as many people think) either cost or exclusive features (like turn-by-turn); it was branding. Google wanted it's name and logo clearly shown on the app ("Google Maps", not "Maps"). but Apple refused (and would not approve a separate iOS Google Maps app since that would "duplicate" core OS functionality). Now, not only does Google get to be the hero by rescuing iOS users from failed Apple Maps, it gets to control the branding on its iOS maps app.

The big sticking point on renewing the licensing agreement was not (as many people think) either cost or exclusive features (like turn-by-turn); it was branding.

All three of those are issues, and there are others such as Google wanting location data from users. You are not in a position to say which were the crucial issues in the company negotiations. They were not public. You're just going on media and blog speculation.

Google included the map turn / tilt that was added to Apple Maps initially. Am I the only one being driven crazy by this feature that cannot be turned off? Just by zooming + or - with two fingers while turning a bit (which happens often and I've no Alzheimer), the top is no longer North oriented... highly annoying.

That's part of the EULA and the "anonymous statistics" I believe. When you use Google Maps it uploads your position periodically, from which it can deduce your average velocity. It correlates that with other reports from other users in geographically similar areas and creates congestion maps.

I don't think stand-alone GPS (like Garmin) upload any data, so they probably purchase it from Google. That's most likely why it's a subscription or ad-based service on those devices.

In the Google Privacy Policy on my phone, in the Service section it says:

"Location informationWhen you use a location-enabled Google service,we may collect and process information about your actual location,like GPS signals sent by a mobile device. We may also use various technologies to determine location,such as sensor data from your device that may,for example,provide information on nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers."